HE'S NOT JAMES BOND, BUT HE PLAYED HIM ON TV
Cliff May has an excellent column on the National Review website about Joseph Wilson IV. As you may recall, Wilson is the former diplomat who was sent to Niger to investigate intelligence reports that Iraq had attempted to purchase yellowcake uranium there. After reporting that the intel reports were unsubstantiated, he hit the TV/media circuit to make his case that the Bush administration lied to make its case for the Iraq invasion. Soon after, columnist Robert Novak wrote a column exposing Wilson's wife Valerie Plame as an employee of the CIA. Wilson cried foul, claiming that his wife was an undercover operative and that the exposure endangered her life and the entire Wilson family.

Reacting like any international man of mystery would, Wilson hit the cable news circuit even harder. He then granted an interview for a piece in Vanity Fair, even posing for a picture with his undercover wife (wearing a clever disguise) in a jaguar convertible (hey, at least they didn't pose in front of their house with the street address visible in the picture). He even wrote a book "exposing" the Bush administration's transgressions.

The media tried to turn this into a scandal ("Plamegate"). An investigation was started to determine who was responsible for leaking Plame's name to Novak. I've always believed that there was a real scandal here, but the media missed the point entirely. Why was Jospeh Wilson, who had no military, intelligence, or investigative background, sent on such an important mission? What role did his wife play in his selection for this contract? How much of the taxpayers' money wound up in the Wilson family coffers?

Wilson denied that his wife played any role in his selection for this contract. According to May, evidence uncovered in a Senate investigation says otherwise:

For starters, he has insisted that his wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame, was not the one who came up with the brilliant idea that the agency send him to Niger to investigate whether Saddam Hussein had been attempting to acquire uranium. "Valerie had nothing to do with the matter," Wilson says in his book. "She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip." In fact, the Senate panel found, she was the one who got him that assignment. The panel even found a memo by her. (She should have thought to use disappearing ink.)

Wilson not only lied about his wife's involvement in his employment by the government, he lied about the evidence that led to his conclusions about the uranium. He claimed that CIA reports showed that the documents connected with the attempted uranium sale were forgeries.

The problem is Wilson "had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports," the Senate panel discovered. Schmidt notes: "The documents — purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq — were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger."

Not only did Wilson lie to further a political agenda, all the while endangering the security of the United States, he DEFRAUDED the government. His wife used her position to get him a job that he was not qualified for. He was paid, and I would love to know how much, to conduct an investigation. He took the money and spent eight days in Niger "drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people" (his own words). If there is a point to criticize the Bush administration on here, it's sending Joe Wilson on this mission in the first place. Who sent a clown to do the lion tamer's job?